A typical communications, data or service network is owned and run by a network operator. The network typically comprises a plurality of network elements to enable it to provide services directly to its own subscribers or end users. However, it is common for service operators to piggy back on the network (and in particular to use the network elements of the network) to enable it to provide its own services to its own subscribers or end users. In some countries, it is compulsory for the network operator to allow service operators (also sometimes referred to as “virtual operators”) to hire network facilities from traditional network operators. The service operators thus make use of some of the network elements provided by the network operator, with the services provided by a service operator very often differing, to various degrees, from the services provided by another service provider.
The network operator and the service operator/s typically both make use of a provisioning system (either separate provisioning systems or the same provisioning system) to assist in the provisioning and activation of subscriber services. The provisioning system will be referred to a source system in this document, with the source system thus sending subscriber service requests to the network elements, with these requests therefore needing to be processed, managed and controlled.
Network operators and service operators have diverse requirements, ranging from having to deal with rapidly rising requests for services to having to be able to rapidly introduce a new service in a saturated market. Also, the number and complexity of available telecommunications services increase every day. Thus, providing source systems (and ultimately their subscribers) with requested services in a timely and correct manner is ideal, but sometimes difficult (if not impossible, in certain circumstances).
If the subscriber service requests to the network elements are not controlled, it may lead to more favourable treatment of one source system when compared to another. It has typically to date not been possible to favour or hinder the processing of service requests from any particular source system, which has often led to a worse than expected provisioning and activation of the requested service. In this regard, and in view of the fact that not all service requests are processed in the same way and that different source systems place different demands on the network, the following factors need to be considered:                1. Some requests are quicker than others, i.e. the number of tasks generated per request can vary.        2. Different source systems send requests at different rates. For example, they can send them evenly over time, or they can send them in bursts or batches.        3. Network elements can be offline, thus requiring additional processing.        4. The inactivity of one source system should not limit the activity of others.        5. Some kind of a control over the processing of the requests would be appropriate when the network and/or the provisioning and activation system is overloaded.        6. The number of active requests and connections for each source system also affects how many requests the source systems can push in. Here, the connections refer to a situation wherein a plurality of clients (client systems) are connected to a same one source system and simultaneously send subscriber service requests through this one source system. Thus, each source system can have a one or more than one clients through which the subscriber service requests are placed.        
Clearly, there are many factors to consider and to provide a solution which can adjust to all possible situations is not practically possible.
It is thus an aim of the present invention to guarantee that each source system gets a minimum percentage of the requested processing power to process its service requests, when the network is overloaded.